What does “People Are My Art” mean?

My wife came across this quote this morning and when she shared it with me, I was blown away — it’s nice to know that there is someone out there who is as brilliant as I am.

“The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people”–Vincent van Gogh

Viewing people as an art means that I have a responsibility to that person, or piece of Art.  We were created as a piece of art through God’s workmanship (Eph. 2:10), and I have a responsibility to help mold, fashion, color, and, well… love.

Love is a responsibility.  Do so as creating a great piece of art.

wii nativity

I found this a bit humorous; a wonderful addition to our Christmas decor.  Our Nativity scene peeps look an awful lot like my wii avatar.  Coincidentally, the blue-haired wise man is a world champion tennis pro.

Cumberland making a difference

This article that came across my in box made me really think about the local American church… and then I realized that much of what is described as being “good” or “healthy” in the American church, Cumberland is doing.

Obviously we are not “that perfect church” yet — but there are some really healthy aspects that we have in our DNA.

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0002157.cfm?utm_id=emailafriend&utm_campaign=1

Change 4 Change

Cumberland Community Church has partnered with Partners for Care and the Glory Outreach Assembly to support several projects in Kenya.  Your small change can make a big change in the lives of Kenyan people. We thank you for your support in making a true difference and being the servants we are made to be. Please find information about the projects below.

Here is how you can help:

1. Scrounge around and find any small change you have in your seat cushions, pant pockets, car consoles, kitchen drawers etc. and collect it with your small groups.
2. Bring in the change collected each week to the church and add it to one of the many larger containers you will see around the lobby.
3. Watch your small change add up to make a big change in the lives of the Kenyan people.

Please read below for more information on the organizations and projects your money is supporting. For more information or to obtain coin collectors to use at your homes, offices and schools please contact Jess Beard at jessbeard7@gmail.com or (678) 756-3784.

Partners for Care

(www.partnersforcare.org)

Partners for Care is an organization that exists to provide hope and health for people in developing nations by empowering and equipping indigenous people.  Through Partners For Care’s Beat the Drum Children’s Home CCC will be helping to raise money and support for a community of orphans.  There are currently 12 children all with HIV/AIDS living at Beat the Drum, and there are additional children waiting to be moved to Beat the Drum, pending construction of additional homes.

Upcoming projects include:

• Build additional homes – totaling 10, to allow Beat the Drum to support 50 children (each home holds 5 orphans)
• Bringing electricity to the property.
• Build a community kitchen and meeting room for the families of Beat the Drum.
• Provide a van for transportation to school each day

Glory Outreach Assembly

(www.goaweb.org )

With the help of GOA, CCC is able to help sponsor widows and their children in the Kinangop region. The children are now able to attend school at GOA Educational Centre through the support of CCC and previous donations. Six cows were able to be bought for this community but due to the drought the last cow died over two months ago.

Upcoming projects include:

• Purchasing chickens and build chicken coups for the purpose of becoming a self sustaining community

An Unstoppable Force

The last few days, I’ve come across this thought that seems to be reoccurring and probably something I should spend some time in prayer and contemplation over: do we actually believe that what we read in the Bible is possible in our time and culture?

I know… stupid question.  Of course it is possible.

But in the wise words of my father, “Do what I say, not what I do.”

Often I think we say we believe something, but our actions speak something entirely different.  Do we believe in The Perfect Church, as Alan taught on at Cumberland this weekend?  I understand we live in a fallen world where we are constantly battling between trust and control on a Teeter Totter, but could you imagine the power we could see if we actually had the faith to see it (Acts 2:43).

“When anyone takes the time to read the book of Acts, it is easy to see that the “Church” was meant to be an unstoppable force in our world and communities. Matthew wrote the words that Jesus had concerning the future of the church … “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it”

// I love those words because they give us something so many need today … the clear reality of something that will last. Nothing can or will stop what God has planned or what he will do.” Read Full Article

How do we… no, how do I get there, church?

Can music become prayer?

I thought this article was interesting, well spoken by the Pope.  Not that the Pope is any final authority on the subject, but I find it comforting that music in general, not just Sunday morning praise music, can become a means of prayer.  Many have believed that to be true, and while worship music is a beautiful way to praise God, it is not the only way.  Worship music is not a style of music, it’s the heart of the people, right?

Regarding a pianist concert, Pope Benedict says,  “This concert has, once again, given us the chance to appreciate the beauty of music, a spiritual and therefore universal language, and hence the appropriate vehicle for understanding and union between individuals and peoples. Music forms part of all cultures and, we could say, accompanies all human experiences, from suffering to pleasure, from hatred to love, from sadness to joy, from death to life.”

The Pope also addressed the wide range of history covered by the performance, saying, “over the centuries and the millennia music has always been used to give form to what cannot be expressed with words, because it arouses emotions otherwise difficult to communicate. It is, then, no coincidence that all civilizations have given importance and value to music in its various forms and expressions.

“Music, great music,” he observed, “distends the spirit, arouses profound emotions and almost naturally invites us to raise our minds and hearts to God in all situations of human existence, the joyful and the sad.”

Thus, he explained, “Music can become prayer.”

Accountability

“You willingly choose accountability when your desire for change eclipses your fear of being known”  — anonymous (actually, someone probably did, in fact, claim to write this, but I don’t know who it was so I’m just saying it is anonymous)

Life is a series of decisions, anywhere from what to wear to work one day, or how to treat our spouses, or how much we are “open” with the people God has placed us in community with.  That is why I find the above quote so meaningful… we want to change to the extent we have handed over our fears to God.

When we fear how people will respond to who we really are, we are less likely to show our true selves.  To paraphrase a Shakespeare quote, when God gives us one face (truth), and we make ourselves another (lies, walls), we limit how much accountability we have in our lives.  But when we crave the accountability, which can be needed for anything from the discipline of spending time with our families to struggling with sinful acts, we had better put people in our lives whom we can trust who will hold us accountable.

Be known.

Authenticity

The past few weeks, the word suffering has become a huge part of my vocabulary.  Conversations with people struggling with cancer, job loss, talks of African children and so much more can be summed up with that one word: suffering.

Two weeks ago a friend of mine gave me tickets to the Rob Bell speaking tour called, Drops Like Stars.  In this tour, and in his book by the same title, Bell speaks of suffering being the one thing that can bond one heart together with another soul faster than anything else.  Suffering is what can bring two people from seemingly different ends of the ethnic, socioeconomic, political, and even physical spectrum faster than anything… just think of two women struggling with Breast Cancer.  Instantly, there is the empathetic, I know what you are going through.  Stick with it, Sister.

Suffering.

Pleasant, comfortable, and uninterrupted lives may hinder authenticity, but pain can create a hunger for authenticity.  — Small Groups.com

Here’s a wonderful little article on how suffering leads to authenticity, openness, intimacy amongst small groups, friends, or even complete strangers.

I plan on writing more and more about this concept of suffering in the coming months, and have even began praying about leading a seminar on how suffering leads to authenticity.  Please check back for future posts about this.

Saint Damien of Molokai

This morning I received a phone call from my mom telling me some pretty cool news.  On my mom’s side of the family, I have a loooooong list of priests in the Roman Catholic and Anglican Church.  Apparently, my grandmother’s first cousin was one of these priests.

This past Sunday, October 11th, my 3rd Cousin was named a true, straight-up Saint from the Vatican by Pope Benedict XVI.  Jozef De Veuster, later known as Father Damien, did some pretty amazing miraculous things on an island in the Hawaiian islands (obviously, when this was going on they weren’t part of the US).  Saint Damien (or, as I like to now call him, Saint Cousin Jozef) set up a mission to those suffering from Leprosy and other serious diseases.  Pope John Paul II beatified Saint Cousin Jozef in 1995, and he was officially made a Saint this weekend!  Read this wikipedia article or here for more information… or just search it out on Google.

Think I can get a ticket into the Vatican now?

Shut Up and Listen to God

I’ve written several times on the subject silence and solitude.  I’m a much more contemplative person, I would rather chew on a thought or piece of scripture for many hours or days than I would try and fly through a book.  For me, a bunch of head knowledge about what a book (of the Bible) has to say isn’t as life transformational than what the essence of a small piece, or even a single word, has to say.

Contemplative practices include silence and solitude, lectio divina (a meditative repetition of a particular Scripture passage), daily office (prayers for specific hours of the day) and other liturgical activities that encourage a still mind and body but an active spirit.  — relevantmagazine.com

I came across this article that I’d like to share with you.  It has some really good insight into how to spend time with God through silence, solitude, and “just chewing on it” – contemplation.

For those of us who attend (or work at) Cumberland Church, this article pretty much validates much of what Alan spoke on this past weekend, particularly with the routinely practices of prayer.

1. Find, develop, and keep a sacred usual place.  Sit down, and for a moment, think about when and where you can develop a routine – an every day place.
2. Have prayer partners – people who are close to you that will go through it with you.
3. Follow Jesus’ example in prayer – be submissive to God’s will.  Be totally honest with God and with your prayer partner – lay face on the ground and be honest.
4. Gauge your prayer intensity!  How earnestly do your pray for/about something?  Is there a hunger there?
5. Be proactive with your praying.  How?  Exercise steps 1-5 over and over.
6. Rise up and get to action!  Follow, do, move forward in the will of God, Abba Father, Daddy.